Re: When will Verizon push Android Marshmallow for the Blackberry Priv?
ggendel
Contributor - Level 1

mnrdtl,

[Removed]

As I mentioned before, Verizon's lack of transparency, along with their ambiguous responses to direct questions has put me in a precarious position.  They've left my phone insecure so my company wanted to wipe my phone clean and disconnect it from the corporate VPN.  We value our customer's personal information as a top priority.

I talked with my partner and CFO of my company about this and he worked out a solution.  Once my contract ends (within a couple of months), I will be moving to a new corporate contract with AT&T that costs less than half of Verizon's.  Verizon just lost a significant chunk of change each year as more employees move away from Verizon (and why wouldn't they with this sweet a deal?).  Maybe this will wake them up and they will finally understand why not providing security patches is bad.

I am still deeply entrenched with the FCC and their current investigation into this practice and intend to see it though.  The goal is regulation that prevent any carrier from withholding available patches from their customers.  My case is a prime example of why they shouldn't be allowed to expose our phones to a successful attack when it's easy to prevent it.

I have a relatively obscure server on the network and even it is constantly being seriously (but sometimes humorously) attacked thousands of times each day.  I learned a big lesson back in 1990 when a server was successfully breached and a rootkit installed.  Once that happened, a complete wipe and reload of the system was required.  Unfortunately, there are few tools to detect and prevent these kinds of attacks on our phones.  We must rely that the phone is supported by diligence and rapid patching of any vulnerability.  In the case of Blackberry, this is what they have promised and done admirably. In addition, they've locked the bootloader and provided tools (DTEK) to validate that the kernel hasn't been compromised.  This is why I choose to purchase a new Blackberry and switch carriers rather than Verizon's proposal that I switch phones.  The Blackberry Priv gives me security plus a physical keyboard that supports launch shortcuts and quick device searching (Not quite WebOS's "Just Type" but close enough).

I pity the consumer that ends up violated with their personal information stolen (possible identity theft), data usage goes off the chart, or their phone stops functioning because Verizon's actions.

Gary [Removed]

Chief Software Architect

Personal Information removed as required by the Verizon Wireless Terms of Service

Message edited by Verizon Moderator


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